Google is making a fresh investment of more than $1bn into OpenAI rival Anthropic, boosting its position in the start-up as Silicon Valley titans rush to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence systems.

Google has decided to invest another billion into Anthropic, four sources told the Financial Times, bringing its total sunk cost to more than three billion dollars. Both companies have declined to comment.

The cash infusion comes on top of the $2 billion that Google has already provided to the artificial intelligence developer. Separately, Anthropic is said to be raising $2 billion from a group of institutional investors led by Lightspeed Venture Partners. The latter deal is expected to value the company at $60 billion.